Saturday, August 27, 2011

Wim Mertens is a Belgian/Flemish minimalist composer. I guess I may be boring the Belgians among the audience with the following number, Close Cover, but for foreigners it's a good start to become acquainted with this man's work.

Mertens, which by the way is a very typical Belgian/Flemish name, composed a.o. music for the 1987 Peter Greenaway movie The Belly of an Architect. Never saw that one nor made any effort for it, even though I like its main actor, Brian Dennehy.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Nail on the head by Anne Nolte, M.D. in The New York Post, August 15, 2011:

WHY TODAY'S SEX EDUCATION WON'T WORK.

By Anne Nolte M.D.

"When I hear that New York City has mandated that sexual education be taught in all middle schools and high schools, as a doctor, I can appreciate the motivation behind the mandate. Teen sexual behavior and risk-taking is a serious problem with serious consequences.

But when I see that the content involves a token nod to abstinence and an emphasis on “safer sex” practices, I’m reminded of a saying made popular by Alcoholics Anonymous: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.”

Graphic sex education inside and outside of the schools, which teaches kids about the risks of early sexual behavior and provides detailed information about how to decrease those risks, has been stirring controversy for more than 30 years -- but has little significant effect on outcomes.

If we really cared about protecting our teens, medical professionals, educators, politicians and parents would step back and admit that something is just not working.

I’ll never forget a patient that I cared for during my residency training -- 17 or 18 years old and pregnant for the first time, one of many pregnant teenagers who came to our prenatal clinic.

In the first trimester, we treated her for chlamydia; in the second, for genital warts. In the third trimester, we hospitalized her -- not for pregnancy complications but because she had planned suicide after being notified that the painful blisters on her private parts were incurable genital herpes.

“How could this happen to me?!” she said. “We used a condom almost every time!”

Dealing with pregnant teens and sexually transmitted diseases was part of our daily routine as medical residents. These teens received medical care an average of 15 times throughout their pregnancies.

Most of my fellow residents exerted every effort to educate them about “safer sex” and ensure that they didn’t leave the hospital after delivering their babies without having received a contraceptive shot, pills or condoms. Even so, a staggering number of these girls returned to our prenatal clinic within six months -- pregnant with their second or third child.

Most teenagers that I’ve cared for know about sex, condoms and birth control -- and have ample access to it. They know where to get it, when to use it and what can happen if they don’t. Yet teen pregnancy rates remain unacceptably high; sexually transmitted diseases in some major cities are epidemic.

In medicine, sometimes what is needed is a paradigm shift -- not just small changes but a radical re-evaluation of the problem and the assumptions and presuppositions relating to it.

If we had the courage to look honestly at teen pregnancy, we wouldn’t be satisfied with a mandate that does the equivalent of placing a tiny band-aid on a gushing artery. If we had the courage to admit that we don’t have a solution, we’d be unwilling to spend more money on an old model that has pretty much failed."

Why don't we just call a spade a spade and say out loud that AGAIN we are observing here the umpteenth leftist screwup when it comes to, wait, oh, when it comes to just about ANYTHING, whether it's the economy, foreign policy, or really taking effective measures with regard to the health and well-being of the population at large.

We are too far down the road to save the current generation, the generation before it, and possibly the following. What's needed is an conservative revolution, of which the cornerstone must be the renaissance of the traditional family. Everything else is plain stinking bullshit. No sex before you are eighteen. Sex education only from 16 on. Reconsidering the return of non-mixed high schools - in Europe, plenty of evidence is beginning to emerge that students perform far better when they don't have to keep their hormones in check all day - and if I can believe an elderly teacher's couple, of which the husband taught my physics and chemistry when I was seventeen (and damn good btw) - we may expect in the near future a modest return, in some quarters at least, of unisex classes.

Parents don't have to be prudes like in the old days. There's nothing mysterious about sex. It's as normal as eating, drinking and breathing. Moms and dads shouldn't be afraid to explain to their kids what female and male genitalia look like, what they can be used for, and how they should be used. I know that I won't have the slightest trouble with it when the time comes to educate my own children about it. But like with everything else, there's a right time to start with it, and that time ain't when they are 11.

"A new campaign by Philadelphia officials to reduce sexually transmitted diseases allows children as young as 11 to receive free condoms via mail order, outraging some parents who believe that's too early to start getting physical.

....

"Playing it safe just got easier," the website reads. "If you live in Philadelphia and are between the ages of 11 and 19, you can now have condoms mailed directly to you for FREE. Maybe it's difficult for you to stop by one of our sites to pick up condoms. Or maybe you're just shy or feeling weird about picking up condoms."

Jeff Moran, a spokesman for Philadelphia's Department of Health, said the campaign was launched last week. No complaints had been received as of today, he said.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter unveiled the campaign on April 7 as he announced the winning design for the city's custom-labeled condom wrapper.
Recent national data indicates that Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of STDs among comparable cities, with African-Americans and adolescents being disproportionately affected, according to city officials. And a 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 37 percent of sexually active Philadelphia high school students did not use a condom during their last sexual encounter.

The rate of teen pregnancy has dropped by roughly 40 percent during the past 20 years, but approximately 1,100 teenagers still give birth every day, or more than 400,000 annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While giving away condoms to children as young as 11 might "seem a little young" to Kevin Burns, executive director of Action AIDS, a health clinic in Philadelphia listed on TakeControlPhilly.org, he said the free condom program is appropriate.

"I think it is," he told FoxNews.com. "If children are old enough to be having sex, which they are in that age range [ages 11-19], they need to have protection."

Burns said his clinic has assisted patients as young as 13, many of whom contact health care providers via phone. "An 11-year-old is too young to be having sex, but does that mean 11-year-olds are not doing it? No," Burns continued. "Let's start first with why are they becoming sexually active so young and try to educate them about the risks of that." To that end, Burns said abstinence should be part of any pregnancy-prevention campaign.

"Abstinence is one end of the continuum and we certainly want to encourage kids to be abstinent, but for the kids who are not, we want to educate them," he said. "Abstinence is certainly one end of the continuum, but abstinence-only programs don't work."

I am not a mayor like Nutter and I'm not even a spokesman for a Department of Health like Moron, but I'm telling these gentlemen their campaign will only make matters worse. What to do then? Well, it's too late to save 13-year old mothers and 35-year old granddads. It's the root causes that have to be tackled here. The steady gramscian advance of leftist idiocy throughout our institutions, over a period of 80 years, got us here. Blacks should stop voting for Democrats, come to their senses, and embrace sound conservative values. Take my word for it - they will do far better, live meaningful, happier and healthier lives, and be productive citizens.

Nutter is the guy who recently addressed the flash mobs - a phenomenon and evolution that was to be expected - of shaming their own race. Sorry Nutter (and since you are a democrat and an zealous Obama supporter one can truly say 'What's in a (sur)name', but you can't have it both ways. It's the policies and the ideologies of YOUR PARTY that lie at the basis of the flashmobs. Either you turn in your Party card and join the Republicans, preferably the real ones, and you start working on restoring the Black Family. You may be starting to see results just before you die, assuming you will live long enough.

Or you keep doing stupid things like distributing condoms to 11-year olds for free - just one more measure in the demonic toolbox that has reduced Blacks in America to their current sorry status - and you will only be pushing your "own race" deeper in the gutter.